URBAN RENAISSANCE:
REJUVENATING & TRANSFORMING
INDIAN CITIES, BEING ACHIEVED THROUGH
INFUSION OF MORE THAN RS.6,85,758 CR
The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has embarked upon one of the most ambitious programmes undertaken in the world for Urban renaissance for rejuvenating and transforming Indian cities through a number of initiatives including infusion of more than Rs. 6,85,758 crore for ensuring citizen friendly urban areas. The transformation has been undertaken by way of implementing key urban reforms, projects for urban rejuvenation, construction of public and household toilets and solid waste management under the Swachh Bharat Mission, initiation and implementation of more than 5000 smart city projects worth Rs.2,05,018 crore under the Smart City Mission, sanctioning of more than 65 lakh houses for construction under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in urban areas, provision of water, sewerage and sanitation under the Mission AMRUT by sanctioning projects worth Rs.77,640 crore, augmenting the urban transport by way of new metro lines, embarking on an ambitious target for skill development of urban youth for gainful employment under DAY-NULM and approving implementation of city HRIDAY plans for 12 cities. The Ministry is also vigorously pursuing reforms in the real estate sector for the benefit of homebuyers by ensuring implementation of RERA in all parts of the country.
SWACHH BHARAT MISSION - URBAN
Since April 2018, an additional 1,612 cities have been declared as ODF taking the total number to 4,124. Construction of almost 62 lakh Individual Household Toilets  and 5 lakh Community and Public Toilet seats  is already over or nearing completion. Further, Urban areas of 21 States/UTs have been declared ODF . “Swachh Bharat Mission”  was launched on 2nd October 2014 for 5-year period with the objective of achieving 100% open defecation free  status and putting in place systems to achieve 100% solid waste management in all Urban Local Bodies  in the country.
To enable people to easily locate public toilets and give feedback on the same, a major initiative of mapping all public toilets in the country on Google Maps has been launched. So far, 835 cities have uploaded more than 33,000 Public Toilets on google maps.
MoHUA has also launched the following:
- ‘ODF+ and ODF++ protocols’, with a focus on sustaining ODF outcomes and achieving holistic sanitation ,
- ‘Star Rating Protocol or garbage free cities’ to motivate cities to achieve garbage free status. It is a single metric rating system, based on 12 parameters of Solid Waste Management covering, Source segregation, Door to Door Collection, compliance by bulk waste generators, daily sweeping, scientific processing of waste, scientific land filling, plastic waste management, construction and demolition waste management, dumpsite remediation, citizen grievance redressal system etc, all of which together contribute to a city’s overall cleanliness and garbage free status.
- ‘Swachh Manch’, which acts as an online knowledge management and stakeholder engagement portal to galvanize the SBM into a true ‘Jan Andolan’.
SWACHH SURVEKSHAN
In order to foster a healthy competition between cities for improving cleanliness standards, Swachh Survekshan survey was conducted for the rating of 73 cities in 2016 followed by ‘Swachh Survekshan-2017’ which ranked 434 cities. Indore secured 1st rank in ‘Swachh Survekshan’ 2017. The third round was conducted from 4th January to 10th March, 2018 covering 4,203 statutory towns in India. Indore, Bhopal and Chandigarh have emerged as the top 3 cleanest cities in the country.
Swachh Survekshan 2019, launched on 13th Aug 2018, will cover all ULBs in the country and commence from 4th January 2019.
To inculcate behavioural change, a national helpline number – 1969 has been launched,
to address queries from citizens around Swachh Bharat Mission. A ‘Swachhata’ app has been launched as a grievance redressal platform for any complaints from citizens related to cleanliness. SBM-Urban has introduced an online educational portal where 150 best practices have been uploaded, in the form of training modules. An innovative audio campaign titled ‘Swachhata Selfie’ has been launched.
Currently, 71,797 wards out of 84,229 wards, i.e. 85 % of wards, are practicing door to door collection, and 46.03% of waste generated is being processed. Waste-to-Compost  plants-635 Plants are operational with 40.47 lakh TPA compost production capacity and 206 Plants with 6.84 lakh TPA output capacity are in progress. Waste-to-Energy  plants-7 Plants are operational with 88.4 MW capacity and 56 Plants with 415 MW capacity are in progress. It has been made mandatory for DISCOMs
Some Success Stories
- Ambikapur in Chhatisgarh has no open dumping yards, segregating 100% of its waste and generating ₹13 lakh every month through their innovative Solid Liquid Waste Management  approach being run by 623 by 623 women self-help group members.
Replicating this model across all its ULBs, Chhatisgarh is on its way to becoming a Zero Landfill state.
- Mysuru is one of the pioneering cities in providing sustainable solutions for waste management. The corporation has set up 9 Zero waste management units and 47 material recovery facilities in the city to manage its entire solid waste generated.
- Kerala has been leading the way in decentralized waste management with most of its cities having installed pipe compost and bio gas plants at the household level.
- Goa has proven how waste can be an asset through its source segregation into 5 fractions. The city claims 100% door to door collection. Most residential societies have composting units and kitchen gardens in place for utilizing the compost produced.
- Aligarh has introduced ‘magic bricks’ made out of dry waste which can be used in construction activities
Entrepreneurship under the Mission
A notable feature under the Mission has been the emergence of groups of citizen entrepreneurs who have set up innovative business models in the waste management sector. For example,
- Spruce Up Industries: Pune developed a street cleaning machine named ‘Jatayu’ to clean-up narrow road sections where the present automated cleaning machines struggle to enter
- In Shirdi, the Janseva foundation has set up a “Waste to Best’ project, where discarded flower waste is converted into compost and agarbattis, .
Bengaluru based Daily Dump designs affordable home and community compost systems, and helps manage household/ community organic waste and convert it to useful high-quality compost
- Kanpur-based DE’DZINES is engaged in making recycled furniture and decor items handcrafted from waste tyre.